Single group of hackers targets Uyghur, Tibetan activists

A years-long campaign of seemingly disparate cyberattacks against Tibetan and Uyghur activists likely comes from a single group of hackers, according to a seven-month study by Palo Alto Networks.

The computer security company also concluded that the information stolen by the group, nicknamed Scarlet Mimic, would be of little interest to entities other than a nation-state.

"The majority of attacks we identified were targeting Uyghurs or Tibetans or advocates thereof," Olson said.

Several other security companies, including Kaspersky Lab and Trend Micro, and Citizen Lab, part of the University of Toronto, have studied attacks against the activist groups, which have long been at odds with the Chinese government. Palo Alto's report noted, however, that it did not have direct evidence linking the attacks to China.